Frost
A friend asked me for a poem for her birthday, with the single word "Frost" as a prompt. What followed was a lot of work - more than I thought I was capable of honestly. It was a humbling and gratifying experience to craft the gift of a short story in the form of 50 haiku. First, second and third drafts, proofreading, then finally putting pen to paper and writing it out proper.
Thank you for the opportunity to push myself, Lynsey. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
My life is stagnant.
Something has to change, and soon.
I can't stay this way.
My laughter has stopped.
Humor and joy have escaped,
eloped without me.
Colors are bled out,
the wind is muted and cold,
the sun's rays are weak.
Love faded away.
Connections have worn so thin,
barely hanging on.
I feel like a rag,
torn from something much brighter,
all value long lost.
I try to re-stitch
but I can't seem to re-fit.
My place is gone now.
Purpose and dreams spent,
exhausted with no reward,
my light has weakened.
My days turn to weeks,
to months, to years, then decades.
Unchanging. A waste.
And then It finds me;
stranger, yet familiar;
a portent complete.
My perception slows,
The passage of time near stopped,
All I know is It.
Is this my answer?
The guidance for which I long?
Or is it my death?
It grows from the dark,
coalescing into form,
indistinct yet there.
Folds of deep darkness.
Non-light become fractalous,
iridescent pitch.
It's not of this place,
a wanderer through planes yore
and unborn alike.
I feel It reaching.
It's purpose unstoppable:
my dark antonym.
Words form in my mind
whispered, unignorable,
brought me to my knees.
"The fire within you,
faded to near nill, hungers.
It yearns to be free."
"The kindling for fire
invites suffering, weakness.
A foolish gambit."
"Extinguish the flame.
Gather the ember close, but
relinquish false light."
"I will be your guide.
Let me reveal to you: peace."
It paused. "What say you?"
This chapter is dead.
My book needs new direction.
I open my mind.
"Empty yourself all.
Leave no trace of ego. Nothing.
Then you will be free."
"Find me in the dark:
seek solitude, seek stillness
where water falls cold."
It faded and swam,
cosmic ink from mesmer swept
until time resumed.
Was It a figment?
No, It's mute roar filled my soul.
My nose is bleeding.
I slept and I dreamed,
but my agony persists.
It is decided.
I need to let go.
So I wander, my feet know
the path to water.
A grove nestled low,
with river and crashing spray.
Nighttime peace. Solace.
I climb atop stone.
A deep lung of braced night air.
I will have control.
I sit cross-leg'ed,
back straight, palms open, eyes closed.
I invite the void.
Time, once again, slows.
I feel It looming over.
Dark fractals gather.
Grand Null breaches the air,
forking forward to my core.
It finds purchase there.
Vacuous desire,
I see you for what you are:
an endless folly.
Ribbons of nothing
sooth and leach the aching fire,
flame fighting the smoke.
Rancid fire once clean,
brightness tainted by failure
must now be stomped out.
Greedy, unkempt flame,
you will join me in the night.
Let go your struggle.
I gather the pain,
let the dark commune within.
A blanket of naught.
It feels like dying.
Trauma past vibrates, cries out,
aches to be relived.
I have tried your way.
Firey cancer, you are done.
Hearken! The night calls!
With each breath in: cold.
With each breath out: the fire wanes.
I sit and repeat.
The flame draws quiet,
heat escaped, it's gnawing gone.
A sense of peace grows.
Pain replaced by Awe.
My world - once small, now endless.
The space between moons.
My eyes drift open.
My world clouded no longer
by sick miasma.
I raise my numb hands
and hear the crunch of iced joints,
my skin wreathed in frost.
The rime runs deeps now.
I have shed consuming flame
to become stillness.
A heart once porous
now dormant in ice azure,
somehow more alive.
Joy no more, nor love,
but deep esoteric awe.
Detached, curious.
Once again, It speaks,
not from without but within.
It's hum is my hum.
"Hone your essence sharp
to cut through veils of untruth.
Experience peace."
"But hold tight your spark,
your essential quintessence."
A pause. "It feeds me."